Why some Palestinians are not convinced of Starmer’s promise

One of the main reasons why British Prime Minister Sir Kiir Starmer – after France, and then, in turn, followed by Canada – has a plan to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, is to turn the decision in a true diplomatic terms, instead of the empty slogan, which has become a peace process again, since the peace process is again.

One day, driving around the West Coast is a greeting reminder of how the facts created by Israel to stop this happened have been concreted in the rocky hills and valleys that the Palestinians want for a state.

The success of the huge national project, which Israel began days after he conquered the territory during the Middle East war in 1967 in the Jewish settlements, which are now home to more than 700,000 Israelis.

Obtaining them there is a project that took almost 60 years, billions of dollars and withdrawn condemnation from friends, as well as enemies. A violation of international law is an occupier to settle its citizens in the land it has taken.

Last year, the International Court of Justice issued a council stating that the whole occupation was illegal.

But the Benjamin Netanyahu government is hungry for more settlements.

At the end of May, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Besalel Smotrich announced that 22 new settlements would be built on the west coast.

Katz said that the mass expansion, the largest of decades, makes a “strategic move that prevents the creation of a Palestinian state that would threaten Israel and serve as a buffer against our enemies.”

“This is a Zionist, security and national response – and a clear decision on the future of the country,” he added.

Next to the Kat was the ultra -nationalist leader raged a troop, who lives in a settlement on the west coast and believes that the land was given to the Jews of God. He is a finance minister, but he is also an effective manager of the West Bank with extensive planning powers.

Smoke called the settlement extension “Once in a generation” and declared: “Next step sovereignty!”

Everyone in Israel and the Palestinians in the territories know that when I have fused and its allies say “sovereignty”, they mean annexation.

I have been fond of the whole earth for Jews and openly discusses finding ways to remove the Palestinians.

On the hill after the hill on the west coast are settlements at different stages of their development, from established small cities with mature gardens and schools, to advanced caravans and militant population of young settlers, who often mix religion with extreme Jewish nationalism, firearms and sometimes deadly aggression to Palestinian Palestinian

Statistics, collected by UN and Mira campaigns, shows that violent settlers have increased attacks on their Palestinian neighbors after the attacks on October 7th.

I went to see how this affected Taipe, an entirely Christian village of about 1500 people.

This is a quiet place that seems to have many more houses than residents. After nearly six tough decades of Israeli occupation, more people from Taipei were forced to emigrate than they now live in the village.

Two nights before the visit, the settlers entered the village when most people were in bed. They burned Kamal Taeya’s car and tried unsuccessfully to enter his new house, part of a pleasant development overlooking decares of olive groves. They smeared the walls with graffiti in Hebrew, sprayed with red paint.

Kamal, a middle -aged man who reassessed whether his decision to move his family to the edge of the village was wise, installed a network of security cameras.

“We were very, very scared,” Kamal said. “I have children and an old mother. Our life was threatened and terrifying.”

I asked him if the UK plan to recognize Palestine would make it easier for his life.

“I don’t think it’s a big step to have superpower like the UK to support us, but on the spot, it doesn’t change much. Israel is not in line with any international resolutions or laws.

“This does not listen to any other country in the whole world.”

The following evening, the Jewish settlers attacked neighboring Palestinian communities, burning cars and spraying graffiti. This is more than vandalism.

The settlers want the Palestinians and in some places in the occupied territories have succeeded, forcing the Palestinians in remote villages from their farms and stealing their livestock.

The Greek Orthodox priest, 74-year-old David Curi was born in Taipei. In my church, he told me that the settlers who threatened, and other residents were often armed.

“Yes, they have weapons … they will use them if we argue with them. They want us, they want us to leave.”

The old priest was challenging.

“We are here because Jesus Christ, 2000 years. Our roots are here. We cannot move. We will not move, even if we die here, we will not move from here … Palestine is inside our blood, how can we live without our blood?”

They were not many miles to Ramala, the actual Palestinian capital on the west coast, but I failed to get there personally. Israel’s checkpoints can drive back to Jerusalem slowly and hard, so I got to Husus Zomlot via Zoom. He is the head of the Palestinian delegation to the United Kingdom, effectively their ambassador to London. He returned home for the summer and was delighted with the UK plan to recognize Palestine.

“This is a sign that the United Kingdom and with it the rest of the international community is really serious about the decision of two countries. We are no longer in the business of the lip service that has lost us for three decades. In fact, if you are really looking for two countries, admit the two countries.”

“We see recognition as an initial pistol to sprint to apply and establish the state of Palestine and fulfill the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

Zomlot was cheerful. That was, he said, the first step and the UK’s decision will have a real change.

History is one of the powerful engines of this conflict. Britain, he added, at the end of the mistakes the mistakes he had made by Palestinians when the imperial forces were here between 1917 and 1948.

He refers to the promises made in a short, writing letter of November 2, 1917, signed by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfur and addressed to Lord Rothschild, leader of the British Jewish community. The letter states that “a declaration of sympathy for the Jewish Zionist aspirations”.

The UK will “consider the benefit of the National Home for the Jewish People with the benefit of the establishment in Palestine.”

This was followed by another promise: “Nothing will be done, which can stuff the civil and religious rights of existing non -Jewish communities in Palestine.”

He meant the majority, Palestinian Arabs, although he did not bapti

At the UN in New York this week, Foreign Minister of the UK David Lamie said the UK could be proud to have helped to lay the foundations of Israel after 1917, but the violation of the promise of the Palestinians in the Balfur declaration, he said “historically unfair that continues.”

In KniSset, Israeli Simcha Parliament, Rothman, an ultra -foreignist MP from the National Religious Party, also had the imperial past of Britain in the Middle East of his mind. The British and the French had tried to fix the borders before, he said as they took the Middle East from the dying Ottoman Empire during World War I. The UK could no longer play the imperial power.

Just like Benjamin Netanyahu and the wicked, his party leader, Rothman, said the Palestine Recognition Plan was rewarding Hamas’s terrorism. He rejected Starmer’s proposal to postpone the recognition if Israel, among other conditions, agreed to the complete termination of the fire in the gas and the revival of the bilateral decision.

“He threatens the State of Israel with punishment and believes that this is the way to bring peace to the Middle East. He is not able to punish us and will definitely not bring peace.”

“And this is against justice, history, religion, culture … He gives a huge award for ya sineur (Hamas leader who led the attacks on October 7 and was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year).

“Wherever he is in hell today, he sees what Kir Starmer says – and says,” Good partner. “

In Taipe, I had asked a group of leading local citizens who drink coffee with the mayor in his office what they think about the plan to recognize the United Kingdom.

One of them, a local businessman, said, “Thank you Britain. But it’s too late.”

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